On Worship and Ministry Identity

Good art shows, it doesn't tell.

Therefore 'Worship Arts' may appear paradoxical at first glance, though it increasingly forms the job description for many new pastoral church staff. For a few years the title 'Worship Coordinator' formed my ministry identity as a member of youth group and later in college.

So you may understand my ambivalence when I attempt to explain my practical theology of worship, which has more to do with David crying in a cave than it does with light shows, good guitar tone, and reverb-washed vocals. Let me explain.

For many years the contemporary church has been embroiled in something asininely referred to as the "worship wars." Relevant Magazine has a helpful summary of the phenomena for the post-evangelical age, which I won't treat in depth here. See, I led worship for two years in a multiethnic fellowship of college students committed to seeing Jesus transform the lives of students and faculty in a profound and real way. Two and a half years after I said my final "thank you" to that group of students, many of whom have gone on to influence their contexts in powerful ways, I still struggle with my identity as a worship leader. I'm pretty much convinced that those arguments don't have anything to do with the Jesus I follow and have everything to do with the private perfectionism that erodes our faith communities today.

As any pastor will tell you, the responsibility of leadership in a faith context is a difficult and often lonely one. In the Church, they take flak from their parishioners for the content of their preaching, for the allocation of their financial resources, and (especially) the choice of music. I can relate in some way to this pressure, even before I came on staff with that campus ministry formally. I attempted to consciously eschew any engagement in the church's worship wars for the sake of the broader call to minister across cultural and traditional lines. We would regularly pepper the set with songs in Spanish, Hymns, and occasionally the latest from Hillsong or Chris Tomlin. I remember specifically one student coming up to me after our large group meeting and giving me feedback about the worship. She was a self-described singer, and said bluntly, "That was cool and all, but I wish you'd play more normal songs." See, I was trained to give space, not noise, for the purpose of creating an environment conducive for authentic encounters with the Lord. I was called to follow the God who is too creative to be limited to one style of music, and even one language. Our movement was described by the other campus ministries (and there were many) as "the one that sings in the other languages,"reduced to our stylistic tendencies rather than the depth of the thought behind the why. As I came up against this reductionistic tendency more and more, I became convinced that my stewardship of my musical gifts was a collective responsibility, not one that is limited by individualistic preferences.

See, my campus was Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and the context was filled to the brim with budding engineers, architects, and scientists convinced by our university that their individual responsibilities were the end and means of education. Cal Poly's motto is "Learn by Doing," which encapsulates the entrepreneurial and exploratory spirit that has produced skillful graduates for the last 100 years. This meant that I was ministering to a group of students that were quietly convinced that they were their own gods.  In practice, I thought that the best course of leading a worship service was silence, not noise. Lord knows we had enough noise in our education. Thankfully, the Lord provided for the ministry in its time. I've experienced true intimacy with the Lord while in the company of 200+ college students. Still, this attitude comes with a price: I've also experienced the crippling loneliness of "not feeling it" while I look out towards a crowd of outstretched arms and closed eyes. This complicates the personal relationship with the Lord that my evangelical heritage claims I should cherish above all else. If I bear a collective responsibility, should I then not be willing to lay down my personal preferences? This surely was more in line with the Jesus that jumped off the pages of scripture saying "whoever wants to follow me must deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow me. (Mark 8:34)

Back to that student. What do you do when you are don't connect with a song? How could I ever tell a student to expand their horizons when I myself have trouble connecting with musical worship at times? Today we don't seem to give much thought to describing the God-human encounter as a "sloppy wet kiss," and yet cringe when we sing a song older than 5 years. Don't get me wrong. I have great love for the creativity of artists/leaders that push us forward into new territory of musical worship. I'll happily sing Jesus Culture's songs in a corporate worship setting, but I probably won't ever visit one of their meetings in Redding or elsewhere as some of my friends do. Today, I prefer the quiet of adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament, where the only aid to divine communion is silence.

Still I remember the forefather of musical worship, King David. Perhaps his most challenging and affecting poem for me is Psalm 22, where he desperately cries for comfort from God amidst the terrifying ordeal of running for his life. Still, he is reminded in verses 4 and 5 that,

In you our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted you and you delivered them.
To you they cried out and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame. 

This is a perfect example of the corporate charge to be rooted in our God's promises, especially when times are spiritually difficult. So often I hear students who tell me how worship music represents their most intimate experience of God, yet few seem to reflect on the collective call to remember the God who calls us to reach outside of ourselves and submit our own experiences to the broader narrative of salvation.

Even when it's hard to.